Private London

Chapter 56

Di Kirsty Webb was wishing she had simply switched off her mobile phone and taken the weekend off.

The drive out of London heading west into the boondocks had been a nightmare, with traffic clogging up Western Avenue and the air-conditioning unit on her car packing up. The first truly hot day of the year and that was when it decided to go on the blink! She had kept the windows open for a while but anyone who has been stuck in traffic in London knows it’s not an ideal solution for long.

When she had broken clear of the M25 the roads had cleared, though, and she made better progress. But all in all she couldn’t help feeling it was bound to be a bit of a wild-goose chase.

The old market town of Aylesbury is only some forty-five miles north and west of London, but on a good day it could still take an hour and a half to get there. Kirsty would have taken the A41 route but roadworks on the North Circular would have made the journey even more unbearable.

Nice to get out of London, though, she thought, goose chase or not, as she drove into the large car park of Stoke Mandeville hospital and switched off the car radio.

A female DI from the local force was waiting to meet her as she headed into reception. A formidable-looking woman in her late thirties but with steel-grey already dominating her hair.

‘Natalie James,’ she said, holding out her hand.

‘Kirsty Webb.’

‘You’d better come with me.’

The DI walked off briskly and Kirsty followed her into the hospital, through reception and down a series of corridors.

The body had been moved to a small side room. A young uniformed officer was standing guard outside. DI James gave him a cursory nod and opened the door, leading Kirsty in.

The corpse was lying on a gurney and had been covered once more with a sheet.

‘His car was hit by a high-speed train going at full tilt. Brain death would have been near-instantaneous.’

‘I can well imagine.’

‘And his body took a considerable amount of trauma.’

‘So the injury to his hand could have happened at the same time?’

‘We thought so at first,’ said the grey-haired detective. ‘But a pathologist took a closer look. The top half of his finger was definitely severed post-mortem. No blood loss, et cetera. There’s no doubt about it.’

The DI lifted the blanket covering the left side of Colin Harris’s body and showed Kirsty the mutilated hand.

Kirsty shook her head, not quite believing it. ‘Do we know what was used?’

‘We think a scalpel.’

‘Right.’

‘I understand you have some similar cases?’

‘Kind of. Only ours were two women. Early to mid-twenties. Both as of yet unidentified.’

‘And both had the same finger chopped off.’

‘The wedding-ring finger. Half of it, anyway. And they both had organs removed.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ The DI was obviously a little rattled. You weren’t supposed to have serial killers in Buckinghamshire.

‘I don’t know, inspector. But we’ve got a break in the pattern here. That could be significant.’

‘How could somebody have known, though? Then sneak into our morgue and cut a finger off a dead body in broad daylight!’

‘Who was it who authorised the transplant? What’s the procedure?’

The DI pulled out a small black book and consulted her notes. ‘First of all, brain death has to be established by two independent doctors.’

‘Independent of the hospital?’

‘No, of the doctors involved with the donation or the transplantation team.’

‘So brain death was established by two independent doctors. And then what happened?’

‘The body was kept alive by life-support machinery, the heart removed and transplanted into the recipient.’

‘And the sister maintains that her brother was vehemently against being a donor.’

‘It’s what she says. Although she also says she had become estranged from her brother. They hadn’t talked in quite a few years.’

‘Why was that?’

‘She didn’t say. I get the feeling that Penelope Harris isn’t much of what you might call a people person.’

‘Can I speak to her?’

‘Of course you can. We’ll do all we can to help.’

‘I have to warn you, inspector…’

‘Go on.’

‘If this is our serial fruit-loop, or even if it is a copycat, London serious crimes squad are going to be down here en masse. You’re going to be kept busy.’

‘Why didn’t they come straight away, then?’

‘Because they didn’t think there was a connection and my time is a lot less valuable to waste.’

‘But you do think there is a connection with your two Jane Does?’

‘Yes, Inspector James. I do.’